Category: Spain

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya85knuDzp8

On the eve of the World Cup in South Africa, here’s the first of (I expect!) several football related posts.

I am a football fan, and I make no secret of my love for La Furia Roja.

¡Sí, podemos!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5YNmTQ5Qng

Today sees the beginning of another wonderful offering from Radio Lingua Network as episode 1 of NewsTime Spanish is launched.

Made by a highly talented trio – Mark ‘Mr RadioLingua’ Pentleton, José ‘just say Edmodo and I melt’ Picardo and Chris ‘where’s it to?’ Fuller, this weekly podcast keeps you up to date with news from Spain and Hispanic countries.

In this week’s edition of News Time Spanish we’ll be looking at the major financial reform in Spain as a result of the ongoing issues around Europe. Other stories include:

• UK elections news
• Spanish sporting successes
• Mexican/US immigration issues
• Health problems in Spain

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and listen for free, whilst a Premium pass will allow you access to transcripts, exercises and a slower version of the audio.

Thanks to an e-mail from Speekee, my knowledge of Spanish festivals has just grown!

This weekend in Spain’s festive year it’s The May Crosses – Las Cruces de Mayo.

Las Cruces de Mayo form a Spanish tradition which dates back to Roman times. Anyone can take part in making the decorative crosses, usually achieved by fitting together sections of plastic tubing, each punctured with lots of little holes. Then the crosses are laced with flowers which fit into the holes. Often, the immediate surrounds of the cross are also ‘dressed’ – with herbs, flowers and the like.

Here’s a clip they posted on Youtube to show what they look like.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERiyXCUlyNo

You can find out more here, here and see some photos here.

And here’s a marvellous 360º panorama of Las Cruces in Motril.

Las Cruces de Mayo – Motril (Granada) in Spain

A beautiful, moving video of the Picasso painting Guernica, presented here in 3D. The music makes it all the more haunting.

Today is Shrove Tuesday – I’ll be making pancakes very soon for my hungry ‘bichos’. However, in Spain and other Hispanic countries, they celebrate differently – as we found out at WCPS during our eTwinning project.

As we’re all taking down our Christmas decorations and enjoying the snow, (well, we are here having been granted a snow day!) in Spain and Mexico, children have been receiving their presents this morning, left for them by Los Reyes Magos.

And not forgetting the hilarious clip I shared last year!

So, the decision about to whom London pass on the Olympic flame at the end of 2012 will soon be made. And much to everyone’s surprise, Chicago (despite Obama) are out and Madrid are still in to fight it out head to head with Rio.

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Spanish Hand Gestures, originally uploaded by KatsAsleep.

Just picked up the following from Twitter via @josepicardo who was alerted to it by @luciax.

Published by The Guardian in its Language Resources – Spanish area, ‘Learn Spanish gestures’ is a guide to some typically Spanish gesticulating that you could employ to look truly authentic as you complain of being fed up or tell your friend how busy the bar was at lunchtime.

Gesticulating is something that I can’t help doing when speaking, especially in Spanish so this is just up my street. And I can see that this would be a useful resource for intercultural understanding activities, comparing typical gestures. I recall discovering the hard way that gestures that are innocuous in one country can cause offence to other nationalities – not my fault that Greece lost 5-0 in the football and noone had told me that holding up five fingers with my palm facing a Greek was rude!